I Wish Gideon Levy’s DNA Story had Addressed Jewish Nationalism
I wish Gideon Levy had just come out and said: There is no such thing as a Jewish “nationality”. I wish Levy, who has taken one of those DNA tests and written about it at length in Haaretz, had gone on to make a statement, not so much about his Jewishness, but about Jewish Nationalism, the ideology of the settler-colonial state of which he is a Jewish national.
As a result of the test, Levy finds out he is 100% Ashkenazi Jew:
“Gideon,” the report says, “your maternal haplogroup is H1 … and can reveal the path followed by the women of your maternal line.” Happy days. My female ancestors traveled north 18,000 years ago and reached Europe. Along the way, these ancestors passed through the deserts of Saudi Arabia — but, alas, never even approached the Land of Israel. Not for a moment. Can that be?
Palestine advocates who have been making the ‘anti-unbroken Jewish bloodline’ Zionist argument for dispossessing Palestinians in response to the hasbara myth have long been saying that.
One of Levy’s conclusions is that, as he is now certifiably 100% Ashkenazi Jew, he could only be said to be (by his detractors for his position against the occupation of the West Bank) a self-hating Jew — not an anti-Semite.
“My parents and my grandparents had no previous connection with Palestine/Land of Israel. My paternal forebears moved from East Africa to Europe via the Caucasus.”
Nevertheless, DNA tests have absolutely nothing to do with the Palestinian predicament and tragedy. It’s not genes that “predispose” us to be of one or another “nationality”. The Zionist political argument for colonizing Palestine is not “genes” but identity — Zionism’s insistence that Jews are a distinct “ethnic community”, a huge global tribe, connected by culture — the culture of religion — that only needs a bit of land for a “national” home. Simultaneously, Israel has long been portraying Palestinian nationalism as little more than terrorism, and Islam, the predominant religion among Palestinians, as incompatible with democracy, and Arabs as vengeful and violent by their very nature.
As a settler-colonial enterprise, Israel is made up and relies heavily, not just on stolen Palestinian land (homeland), but also on the stolen Palestinian Arab culture it simultaneously erases and co-opts. As Palestinians, our right to land is political, not cultural or genetic. And so also is our indigeneity.
In reaction to Levy’s article, Deborah B. Santana says on Facebook:
National or cultural identity has zero to do with DNA, and everything to do with historical and familial connection to a land and the collective practices that arose among its people. This is especially true of indigenous societies, who couldn’t care less about genes but always ask “who are your people? Who are/were your relatives? Which part of our homeland are/were they from? … My indigenous friends from many nations are very clear about biology having nothing to do with who is “native.” They also point out that often people are adopted into their nation or clan.
Her comments are backed by international law, which has culturalized indigeneity. The UN has developed a definition for indigeneity, which, in time, “became almost exclusively defined along cultural traits,” as Lana Tatour, Adjunct lecturer in the School of Social Sciences at the University of New South Wales, explains in a comment on Facebook:
In principle, as matter of common-sense, Palestinians should be recognized as indigenous because they are subjected to settler colonization. But the idea that Israel is a settler colonial enterprise is not a mainstream in international politics and law. Second, international law demands more. Palestinians can’t prove cultural distinctiveness, traditional ways of living, etc. Cultural distinctiveness is a paramount principle, without which indigeneity under international law cannot be established. Under international law, colonization is not an essential criterion for recognition.
The beleaguered Palestinian Bedouins of the Naqab, as an example, whose Nakba (i.e. displacement to make way for colonist Jews on their land) is ongoing, have recently been recognized as indigenous under international law, and efforts are under way by academics and NGOS to protect their land rights along the lines of the UN “culturalized” definition, rather than, politically — i.e., because of land injustice resulting directly from Zionist colonization of Palestine. The unfortunate result of this, according to Tatour, is the “fetishisation of the Bedouin as a premodern and endangered culture that is deserving of protection and preservation. As a result, the Bedouin have been reduced to a culture and have become defined through that culture, which is perceived as uniquely premodern and traditional.” What’s more, the Palestinian Bedouin had better stay that way to cling to this categorization.
This brings me back to Gideon Levy’s DNA. Is he claiming indigeneity as a 100% Ashkenazi to that culture, since, according to the UN definition, groups that have not experienced colonization can also qualify as indigenous? I am not sure that’s what he is saying. To put it another way, what does Levy’s DNA test have to offer Palestinians in their struggle against Zionist colonization, which is predicated on “Jewish nationalism”? Unless Levy goes on to decry the driving force behind Israel’s settler-colonialism and its crimes of ethnic cleansing and apartheid, namely Jewish Nationalism, there is nothing there for us.
As Lana Tatour puts it in the last sentence of her article ‘Recognising Indigeneity, Erasing Palestine’: “Our struggle is to dismantle the settler state altogether.”
Peace for Palestinians means restitution of property, nationhood, identity — all blotted out by Zionism’s claims.
It’s clear, from Levy’s other writings, that justice for Palestinians is his overarching goal. I am measuring helpfulness against the rhetoric that nobody is using and that I had hoped Levy would articulate. The “direct bloodline” myth has been out there forever and debunked many times as a tactic. But nobody is talking about the huge political problem of Jewish Nationalism. That is still sacrosanct and standing firmly in the way of a political solution. When it comes to Israel, it isn’t just right wing demagoguery (i.e., extremist politics) that is the problem. Jewish Nationalism, as the mainstream hegemonic identity politics in Palestine/Israel, is the problem. It goes to the foundation of the Jewish state. Many criticize White Nationalism as a matter of course, but hardly anyone criticizes Jewish Nationalism, or discusses its inherently extremist nature. It’s only Zionism that gets such a pass and is ongoing with impunity. That’s what makes Zionism exceptional.
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Rima Najjar is a Palestinian whose father’s side of the family comes from the forcibly depopulated village of Lifta on the western outskirts of Jerusalem. She is an activist, researcher and retired professor of English literature, Al-Quds University, occupied West Bank
